The Wheatfield
A monument honoring the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry
A photo of a young James Jackson Purman
James Jackson Purman's gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery
A photo of James Jackson Purman taken later in life
James Milton Pipes
The Medal of Honor
James Milton Pipes' gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery
Stephen Lang
After two hours of intense fighting, countless soldiers lay mortally wounded in a wheat field in Gettysburg. It was the third and final day of the battle there.
On Monday, the 150th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Gettysburg, actor Stephen Lang will portray a Greene County soldier in a one-man play, “The Wheatfield,” to be presented at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitors Center, as part of its extensive array of events commemorating the sesquicentennial.
The play focuses on Lt. James Jackson Purman and the lifesaving act performed by him and Sgt. James Milton Pipes. Purman and Pipes, his lifelong friend, were members of the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry, Company A., Greene County. Both received the Medal of Honor for gallantry for putting aside their own safety to rescue a mortally wounded comrade.
The men’s account of what happened next is documented in their own words in the book “Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Pipes said Confederate soldiers from the 24th Georgia Infantry were closing in on them. “The question confronted us: ‘Shall we be captured or take the slim chance of crossing that field?’ Of course we took the chance,” Pipes said.
They had barely started when they heard the calls of their fellow soldier. Despite hearing calls from the enemy of “Halt, you damned Yankees, halt,” Purman and Pipes carried their comrade for 30 to 40 feet, placing him behind large boulders where he would be protected from the fire of both sides. They later learned he was John Buckley, Company B, 140th Pennsylvania Infantry from Mercer County. Buckley didn’t make it.
“This occupied but a few moments, but the delay was fatal to our attempt to cross the wheat field,” Pipes said. Both men were hit. Pipes used his rifle as a crutch and got just a few paces when he was faced with the Confederates. He was captured and placed in a temporary hospital inside a barn.
Purman lay wounded in the wheat field, flanked on either side by the blue and gray of opposing forces. The sun beat down upon him for hours as the fighting continued. As darkness fell and the volley of gunfire ceased, the faces of the dead, illuminated by moonlight, could be seen between the sheaths.
“The night wore on with no sleep for me. Its quiet broken occasionally by the cries and groans of the wounded,” were the words of Purman.
Eventually Purman would take another bullet to his right leg. The first shot had shattered the left one. Lying closer to the Confederate line and in dire need of a drink of water, Purman called out to one of its soldiers.
“I am twice wounded and dying out here. Won’t you bring me a canteen of water?” he asked.
The soldier hesitated but eventually acquiesced, crawling through the field so as not to be seen by the Union line.
“I drank and drank and thought it was the sweetest water I ever had tasted. He poured some on my wounds and cut the boots off my legs. After this I began to feel I had a chance for life, if I could get out of the hot sun and from under the fire then constant over the field,” Purman recounted.
He convinced the Confederate soldier to place him on his back and crawl with him out of the field and into the woods. At one point Purman passed out from pain and the loss of blood. The soldier left him to refill his canteen, returned and splashed the water in his face, rousing him.
“Getting on his back again I held on till we reached the woods. Placing me under a tree on a rubber blanket, he gave me a canteen of water and some Confederate biscuit, and I gave him my watch as a souvenir,” Purman said.
Purman lay there until evening when the Union Army pushed out the Confederates and came to his rescue. Purman was carried to a makeshift hospital at the foot of Round Top.
“Here the next morning I celebrated the Fourth of July by the loss of my leg,” he said.
Pipes said he remained in the hands of the enemy until the next morning, when the Union forces advanced to recapture him.
He was rushed to the 2nd Corps Field Hospital, where he was reunited with Purman. After Purman was transferred to a hospital inside the Witherow home, he met and fell in love with his nurse, Mary Witherow. After the war, Purman returned to marry her.
Pipes would again be wounded while in action at Reams Station, Va.
“While looking out under the smoke, when the fire of the enemy had abated, I received a wound through the right arm, shattering it from near the shoulder down to the elbow. The fight at this time seemed to be nearly over,” Pipes said. “With the assistance of two comrades, I was able to lead my command back to the woods, where I ran across my regiment.” His arm was amputated the next day at City Point, Va.
His Medal of Honor was awarded for distinguished gallantry in action both at Gettysburg and at Reams Station, Va.
Pipes and Purman were both students at Waynesburg College when they answered President Lincoln’s call to arms.
Post-war, Purman would go on to become a professor at the Monongahela College, study law, join the Greene County Bar Association, move to Washington, D.C., and graduate from medical school to become a doctor.
He would make a point of tracking down the Confederate soldier who saved his life, Thomas P. Oliver, the adjutant of the 24th Georgia Infantry.
“As the Confederate regiment charged over me I read on their flag: ‘Twenty Fourth Georgia,’ and while I was being carried on his back I noticed one bar of lace on his collar. So I was reasonably certain that a lieutenant of the Twenty-Fourth Georgia Regiment was my savior,” Purman wrote.
They would exchange letters and eventually meet when Oliver visited the Capitol with a delegation of Georgians. Purman introduced him to then-President Teddy Roosevelt.
After his service with the Company A, Pipes would be elected treasurer of Marshall County, W.Va., serve as secretary of state, and be a member of the state Constitutional Convention. After moving to Washington, D.C., he would spend 40 years in government service in various positions.
Upon their deaths, both Purman and Pipes were buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.